How to Make the Best Beer Can Chicken

Novelty aside, beer can chicken is the best, easiest way to cook a whole chicken on the grill without any special equipment. The beer from the can steams the chicken, resulting in a perfectly-cooked whole chicken — burnished to mahogany perfection — no flipping, rotisserie, or special pan required.

If you’ve ever pondered cooking beer can chicken on the grill but weren’t sure where to start, here’s everything you need to know to do it well: the best beer to use, how to prevent flare ups or falling chicken, and how to finish the chicken with a quick beer-based sauce.

Maybe you’ve attempted beer can chicken before (possibly, like me, while already a few beers deep in college) and been wildly disappointed in a fully cooked but bland chicken. Or maybe you’ve had the whole endeavor tip over, extinguishing your charcoals or steaming the inside of your grill. The best beer can chicken really is equal parts seasoning: the right beer, a good dry brine — and technique: how to set up the grill, plus how to get the top-heavy chicken on and off seamlessly.

I always say that for any recipe that has alcohol as an ingredient, use something you like to drink. Beer can chicken is no exception. The most popular choice is lager — something middle of the road, and not too hoppy or bitter. I have a deep abiding love affair with fruit-forward sours, so that’s what I reach for when grilling beer can chicken, both because I like to drink it and because the acidity works well with the grilled chicken. Feel free to reach for either a lager or a sour.

Follow these tips, and you’ll be set up for success.

• Season the chicken well. Season the chicken inside and out with a dry rub of salt, paprika, thyme, and cumin.
• Empty (or drink) half of the beer. You need some headspace in the can to create steam for cooking the inside of the chicken. You can reserve 1/4 cup for basting the chicken later, or just drink the poured off beer.
• Set your beer can chicken in a pan. You don’t need a fancy beer can chicken holder, just a simple 9×13 metal (or disposable foil) pan. Set the beer in this pan and the lower the chicken onto the beer — this will not only help you transfer the chicken from the kitchen to the grill without spilling, but it will also catch the chicken and the beer if things get topsy on the grill.
• Cook the chicken over indirect heat. Beer can chicken takes about an hour of total cook time — so you’re essentially setting your grill up to be an oven for slow roasting. Depending on your grill, this could mean setting all the coals to one side on your charcoal grill or lighting half of your gas grill burners to high while the others stay off. That reserved beer will come in handy for basting the chicken with an easy sauce towards the end of cooking.

Kitchn’s Food Editor-at-Large Christine Gallary gave me the best bit of advice for removing the can from the finished beer can chicken, because it really is the hardest part of the whole thing. “Move the whole beer-can-in-the-chicken onto a cutting board to rest; Then have one person grasp the beer can with tongs to hold it in place while a second person grabs the chicken — use wadded up paper towels or a clean kitchen towel — and pulls it up off of the can.”

After resting, carve up the chicken and serve with, what else, more beer! Jokes aside, give your pan drippings a taste and feel free to serve the carved chicken with the drippings.